Local educators learn about responding to tragic events during crisis management conference

Educators and administrators from Centre, Clearfield and Clinton counties spent three days at State College Area High School this week learning skills they hope to never need to use.

The Tuesday-Thursday crisis management conference was led by Crisis Management Institute founder Cheri Lorve, who has spent over 40 years helping schools, organizations and communities respond to different events and tragedies. Lorve has helped in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the Columbine high school shooting.

During the conference, more than 100 counselors, social workers, administrators and other school staff members learned about responding to tragedy and ways to help students, faculty and staff cope after traumatic events.

“One of the things about bringing groups of people together is that we cross-pollinate expertise,” Lorve said. “So we can have one administrator who has had one kind of crisis that several others have never experienced.”

The training focused on responding to various scenarios, like student deaths, suicides, missing children and terminal illness. District’s crisis response teams, or flight teams, worked through the scenarios and learn about how to help the school community move forward after traumatic events.

Jacquelyn Martin, superintendent at Keystone Central School District, helped organize the event with the help of the Central Intermediate Unit 10, which all Centre County schools are a part of. Martin has had to use Lorve’s crisis management training in the past and wanted other districts to have the resources and training.

“It just builds a wider network of support,” Martin said. “No one person can know it all, no one district can know it all. But when you enlist the support of others it really gives you the true value of what a team can do.”

Lorve has recognized the impact frequent mass casualty events and the pandemic has had on students and educators. Student mental health and behavior has been a key issue for many districts across the country this year.

“It has become more stressful, I would say notably since the ‘90s and that it’s accelerating. I think the level of stress that we’re feeling now is amplified. The fact that kids lost two years of socialization has had tremendous implications, that in itself is extremely stressful for for teachers right now.”

Although Martin said it’s important for administrators to prepare for any events at the school, she hopes many of the educators at the conference never have to use what they learned during the week.

Due to the nature of the subjects, educator’s mental health is also at the forefront of the conference for Martin, who encouraged those around her to take breaks if needed.

“It’s heavy content and it also drums up a lot of deep emotion in the administrators who have had to deal with tragedy because it drums all those things back up,” Martin said. “As a transformational leader, it’s really important to take care of our people.”

This story was originally published June 16, 2022 at 2:14 PM.